New salary data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics might not be that surprising. STEM careers make up more than half of the top 100 paying jobs in this nation.

But what is noteworthy is new research from the Economic Policy Institutethat reveals plenty more STEM trained workers than are actually working in those careers, debunking the popular argument of government and startup leaders that looser immigration is our nation’s only hope of meeting current STEM job demand.

In fact, students have responded to the call for more scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians—performance of young students of all ethnicities has improved drastically. U.S. students now make up a third of the top worldwide performers on science tests. And the number of computer science graduates has doubled since 1998.

(They may be drawn by the salary stats. Spend some time learning meaty subjects in college, and you’ll be set for life with pay. According to a breakdown of salaries as presented by Upstart parent the Business Journals, anesthesiologists top the list with $232,830 average annual pay and mechanical engineers end it, with a still appealing $84,770.)

There are still few students graduating from college in a STEM field—4 percent. But only 2.5 percent of those students find a STEM job within a year after graduation. In some fields, such as IT and engineering, the supply of graduates exceeds the number hired by two to one, the report shows.

What does this tell us? That U.S. companies are already accessing the world’s population of engineers, scientists and the like. And in many cases, they’re available at lower pay rates than U.S. graduates might expect. The EPI study estimated that the U.S. guest worker visa programs had 372,000 workers in 2011. In the IT market, they make up a third to half of all job holders.

Laura Baverman is a business journalist newly relocated to Raleigh, North Carolina. Before her move, Laura spent nearly four years tracking Cincinnati's growing technology and startup scene for the Cincinnati Enquirer.

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